Sulu's Almost Perfect Shore Leave
by HorizonCold
Summary: After spending a wonderful two weeks at home, Sulu can't help feeling something important was missing from his vacation. Sulu-centric but includes hints of fluffy pre-slash between Sulu and Chekov.


**Sulu's Almost Perfect Shore Leave**

**Star Trek in all its forms does not belong to me. If it did, Sulu never would have worn a shirt while on bridge. Darn uniform regulations!**

**In case you missed the previous warning, somewhere in this fanfic lurks fluffy pre-slash. If a shudder hath run down your spine, turn back now. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy. **

_**I enjoy italics. They make words spiky. In the following text, they may signify Sulu's inner thoughts, flashbacks, the name of a ship…I'm a lazy author. You are all smart readers. You can discern the difference.**_

"Two minutes until beam up, Lieutenant Sulu."

Hikaru Sulu responded into his communicator, watching the natural sun reflect off San Francisco's bay harbor while he still had time. "Understood, Ensign Weisz. Am in position and ready for transportation."

Adjusting the strap of his standard-issue traveling bag on his shoulder, standing alone on the wide transport pad located just outside Starfleet Academy, Sulu again fought down a surge of discontent burning in his chest. _Best vacation in my life, and I still feel like I missed something. But I'm all better—happy and strong again. Well-rested and ready to charge back into the fray. _

The fleet massacre brought about by the Romulan Nero had depleted not only Federation morale, but also manpower. Due to the decrease in active starships available for emergency response, diplomatic affairs, and exploration, the crews left were spread thin and exhausted with their heavy workloads.

But few complained. Especially not the officers assigned to the _Enterprise_. Definitely not the pilot on duty when the _Enterprise _first dropped out of warp, the slaughter of his friends displayed across the view screen. Sulu had been walking back to his room after pulling a triple-shift, too tired to swing by the cafeteria to eat. He did not remember fainting; he remembered only the tired, accent-laden voice of Pavel Chekov promising to bring a warm bowl of soup and maybe one of Scotty's famous sandwiches to Sulu after the Russian finished stuffing himself.

Doctor McCoy's voice, nowhere near as endearing as Pavel's, stirred him from his unconsciousness in sickbay. The cranky physician was demanding Captain Kirk to assign Sulu shore leave or he'd save Jim the trouble and "kill the man now with a flesh-eating Klingon virus hypospray." Benevolent as always, the captain opted for offering Sulu a two-week vacation on Klingon-flesh-eating-virus-free Earth.

A rendezvous with _USS Nexus _provided Sulu with a ride back to his home planet, with the _Enterprise _scheduled to pick him up after attending a peace conference in a nearby quadrant. Although slightly saddened by his upcoming departure back into space, Sulu was also again prepared to fight to protect his home and his family. His two weeks on Earth had reminded him wonderfully why he put up with the long shifts, the months without real sunlight, the frequent brushes with death, the admirable but eccentric officers he served alongside.

The shore leave had been wonderful for many other reasons.

He'd finally earned his father's respect.

_Hikaru scrambled for an excuse not to go through the door into his father's study, not able to find one believable enough. He felt foolish in his pressed slacks and button-down white shirt. Never since he was a kid did he understand the importance of these meetings all Sulu children had with their father. All the hubbub and jitters for a ten-minute awkward conversation alone which could have been only half as awkward over the dinner table with the rest of the family present. Although, Hikaru guessed his sisters' talks with their dad went much smoother than his._

_Hiroshi Sulu at the age of nineteen had traveled from Japan to San Francisco, poor but determined to forge a name for himself in one of Earth's fastest economically booming cities. After a year of working in a docking warehouse, he met eighteen-year-old Hana Delaney when he moved into the apartment next to her parents'. From the moment of their first kiss, he dedicated his life towards building a comfortable home for her, and later on, for his five children. Through hard labor and persistence, the warehouse hand got promoted to supervisor, from supervisor to manager, and from manager to owner._

_As Hiroshi's only son, Hikaru was expected to demonstrate all of his practicality, which apparently did not include dreams of traveling between the stars, searching for adventure and romance like the fabled Musketeers. Hiroshi wanted his son to enter a profession which would not endanger his life needlessly, but instead reflected a humble and honest existence. A profession which would create another comfortable home, safely protecting a good woman and several grandchildren._

"_Hey, Dad? You wanted to see me?" They hadn't shared a one-on-one conversation since Hikaru brought home his acceptance letter into Starfleet. In Hiroshi's eyes, the nearby academy only resulted in an influx of rude and adrenaline-driven kids into the city already overflowing with the rude and adrenaline-driven._

"_Take a seat, son. We didn't expect you home until your scheduled shore leave next year."_

_Hikaru squirmed in his chair. "I've been home two days and you ask me why now?" Only a firm, patient gaze answered him, itself waiting an answer. "Doctor McCoy gave me a few weeks for recuperation from over-fatigue."_

_Grey-flecked brows knitted over the still-firm gaze. "You were fatigued? This is why you slept so long yesterday morning?"_

_The younger man's defensive shields immediately raised, believing to be under attack. As his words left his mouth, he hated how harsh and childish they sounded. "I was pulling shifts lasting over twenty-four hours! We're making up for all the officers killed by Nero! You might not think so, but we are considered heroes and heroes work hard!"_

_Hiroshi's voice was a calm counterpoint to Hikaru's frustration. "Do you still believe yourself capable of working in space, among all these heroes?"_

"_Yes! Damn, I know I sound arrogant, but yes!"_

"_No need to swear. Or yell. Why do you believe this?"_

_Hikaru breathed in deeply, taking advantage of his father's infernal patience for answers by taking a minute to gather his thoughts. "The people I fly with are amazing. I mean, Captain Kirk saved the human race his first week on a starship. Commander Spock's beyond intelligent, even for a Vulcan. Uhura, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov…they're all geniuses. Chekov's my partner on the helm and he's only seventeen!_

"_They depend on me to get the _Enterprise _where she needs go to, whether or not hell's raining down outside the ship. The Captain never second guesses my ability, he just…knows I can do it. He has a lot to worry about, but he doesn't have to waste energy on wondering if I'm gonna do my job right. If he can trust me, if they all can trust me, I must be doing something right."_

_Speaking to himself now, forgetting the study and the weight of his father's eyes, Hikaru continued. "Pavel even told me once...After a particularly close scrape, we always stay up talking late. Can't sleep alone after all that, you know? All the nightmares. I think he thought I was asleep, but he told me that when things get tough on the bridge, he always looks at me. He said seeing me composed lets him know we're both going to be okay."_

_Hikaru shrugged, sheepish and still embarrassed over Pavel's admission in the darkness of the latter's cluttered quarters, the navigator on his bed while the pilot rested on a futon already imprinted with his form from previous sleepovers. His embarrassment worsened as he remembered his straight-laced audience. "Guess if I ever panic, we're both screwed."_

"_I believe if you did not panic in the beginning, you will not panic in the end."_

_Hikaru searched for the criticism hidden in the comment. "Huh?"_

_Hiroshi smiled, placing a warm hand on his son's arm. For the first time, Hikaru saw his father's tears. "I only asked if you believed yourself a hero because you need to know that's exactly what you are. I'm proud of you, Hikaru."_

He'd dazzled his little sisters with real adventure stories.

"_So there we were, stranded on a planet five times hotter than 'Cisco in the summer. An ion storm cut off our communication to the _Enterprise_, preventing them from beaming us up from the surface."_

"_Don't storms cool things off?"_

_Hikaru was used to repeating adventure tales to his sisters during dinner to keep them entertained, but the stories before had always been ones borrowed from novels, comics, antique movies. Now he could tell him quests he had played a role in, real ones with real risks and real victories. When he returned home after the Nero incident, he hadn't been emotionally capable of telling them all that had happened, but enough time had passed to soothe the aches. Today's dinner had been consumed slowly, with months of exploits to recount. _

_Used to repeating adventure tales, he was also used to repeated interruptions._

"_Not this storm. There was no rain, although a replenishment of our water supply would have been nice. The wind picked up, but the wind was hot and it made it hard to see. The land was mostly dirt and sand since the planet had been stripped of life after being pulled too close one of the system's suns. The rescue signal our sensors and the Klingon ship picked up looked new our technology, but it was really millions of years old."_

"_What did ya do?"_

"_We knew there was a cooler cave five miles ahead where we could wait out the storm. About a quarter-way there, Scotty detected a gap in the ion fluxes and tried to get one of us back to the ship. We told him to take up Lieutenant Heron since he had been injured earlier in a rock slide. But his signal was lost in the middle of transport, so he didn't make it out of the atmosphere."_

_He heard his sisters collectively gasp, and was suspicious his parents had gasped as well. "So, it was just me and Ensign Chekov, crossing this forsaken desert, tired, thirsty, and hungry. But he grew up in Russia, used to snow and cold weather. I heard a thump hit the ground, and next I knew Chekov was lying across the ground, unconscious and nearly invisible in the flying dirt."_

"_Did he die too?"_

"_No. I couldn't leave him behind. Chekov's my friend. So I picked him up, kinda like I used to pick you all up when you refused to get out of bed in the morning, and slung him across my shoulder. Kept my free hand on my sword, just in case a remaining Klingon lurked around. When we got to the cave, I revived him with the last of our remaining water. We ripped up our shirts and pants to form a cloth barrier to the small cave, keeping out the sand and hot wind. Chekov was severely dehydrated, and I wasn't too far behind. _Enterprise _got us back just in time."_

_A rare silence drifted over the table until Hanako whispered, "Wow. Bet your friend was really grateful you carried him that far."_

_Hana Sulu smiled over her plate. "This Chekov is the same young man who saved you on the planet Vulcan? Pavel, the boy with the accent?"_

_Hikaru smiled at his mother in return. "Yes, ma'am. Sorry about that. It's hard to stop him once he gets talking, especially about things I don't understand. He didn't realize I had started recording my transmission to you." _

"_Don't apologize. I'm glad you've made such sweet friends."_

_Hailey, his youngest sister, spoke up with half a dessert cookie stuffed in her mouth. "Dis time 'Karu got to save 'im!"_

"_Yeah. Guess I did."_

He'd indulged in a long-denied passion.

"_I'm so excited to show you this particular specimen, Hikaru. If you remember the lecture given in your first horticulture seminar, you would recall my mentioning of my acquiring the seed of this little endangered beauty from a personal friend studying on Nartur. These sprout very slowly, often not blooming until their fourth or fifth year. You see the beginnings of the buds?"_

_Sulu leaned closer to the pot where a small mass of fuzzy vines were displaying a dozen tiny ice-blue ovals. "Yes, I see them. They're beautiful."_

"_Each bloom will produce approximately one gram of pollen, enough to save a Narturian from the disease which threatens to send them into extinction. Hopefully with the right applied sciences, our labs can mass replicate the compounds in the pollen needed to combat the disease." _

"_Can you pronounce its name again for me, Dr. Kessler?"_

"_Mouy'tul'ra'na. We've decided to give them the common title of Nartur's Gentle Vines. Legend on Nartur claims the vines are intelligent enough to sense humanoids of noble, or gentle if you will, character. Silly enough of a belief, but the species does react negatively to the level of stress pheromones admitted in the surrounding atmosphere, so it is best to keep any specimen stored in an area of tranquility."_

_Dr. Kessler smiled at the young man who had once been one of her top students, despite his decision to become a pilot instead of a horticulturalist. She quickly moved along to another section of her restricted-access garden, excited to show off her best specimens to such a bright mind._

_Sulu did not follow her. His breath was caught in his throat and he did not dare to move. One soft, ice-blue budded vine had wrapped itself around his index finger. _

He'd visited old places.

_The ice-cream parlor was ancient, dating back to before the third world war. He had spent many afternoons there after school, relaxing underneath the red-and-white stripped awning with a melting double-scoop cone and a group of friends. Some nights, after arguments with his father or aggravating quarrels with his sisters, his mother would bring him to the parlor for a sweet escape. Underneath the awning near the bustling street was a place of preteen socialization, first kisses, and pretend fistfights. Inside, at a corner table away from the noise of the highway, was his and his mom's place._

_This corner was where he first learned his was going to be a brother, where he first confessed to a desire to fly, and where he suddenly broke down in his mother's arms after watching his friends get murdered in an unfair battle._

_This corner was where they went after Hikaru first visited the academy's memorial dedicated to those friends and his other fallen classmates a day before his expected departure back into space. Before viewing the memorial, the new occupants of his old dorm let him in without a second hesitation, listening politely as he rambled on about the hi-jinks carried on in the room before their arrival._

_Hana stirred her strawberry sundae until it turned into a thick pink soup; Hikaru attempted to eat the massive double-scoop chocolate cone before it started to drip._ _"Did you know any of your new friends back at the academy? I know there were a lot of students enrolled around the time you were supposed to graduate."_

"_Not really. I heard about them here and there, but none of us were close back then, except for the captain and the chief medical officer."_

"_James Kirk and Leonard McCoy?"_

_Hikaru hid a grin at his mother's obvious research about the _Enterprise. _"Yeah. Maybe Commander Spock and Uhura too. I'd heard the gossip about Kirk around school, nearly failed Spock's course, saw the marathon Pavel won, hated him for throwing off the curve, but that's really all I can remember of them beforehand. We all probably passed each other dozens of times without knowing it."_

"_Back then, none of you knew there was anything to know."_

"_True. We ran in completely different circles. Funny how little pieces of the past can make up a present you don't expect."_

_Hana reached over with a napkin wetted from her mouth, dapping at her son's cheek where a bit of ice cream had dried. "Perhaps it is the present which is not unexpected, but the past created to led up to it."_

_Hikaru dodged the napkin. "What do you mean?"_

_The napkin returned to the chocolate stain with determination. "No-one in this galaxy can tell me you and your friends weren't destined to be on that ship. Some kind of fate, maybe even some kind of higher power, got each of you up there together. Even though I fear every day for your safety, I know that's where you're supposed to be."_

But he'd still felt as if his vacation were incomplete.

Despite being bone-tired and nearly impossible to wake once he got to sleep, he'd had trouble every night falling into slumber. The sounds of the house were old and loud compared to the constant low hum of the starship engines. He'd get up to walk around in the dark, going to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen, but then feel disoriented when the arrangement of his bedroom furniture didn't match the arrangement of his ship quarters.

Lying in bed, looking at the ceiling, he'd have a nagging notion which would soon turn into a raging impression that he still had something left to do, or that he had misplaced something during the day. That something was missing, something on the tip of his tongue he couldn't quite recall to name.

Even worse was the unsettling action of turning to talk to someone when no-one else was home, expecting someone to be there in the otherwise empty house. Despite after spending hours with his family, past professors, and surviving old friends, he'd still did not feel all the necessary words had been said. Even though he didn't know those necessary words which died on his lips unsaid when he turned to face empty air, even though he knew all his family, professors, and old friends cared about him, he understood no-one on Earth would quite understand what he was going to say.

Naturally, all these feelings baffled him completely.

On the transport platform, Sulu fingered the fold-away katana his kept hidden in the waist-band of his uniform, a nervous habit manifested during his days at the academy where personal weapons were forbidden. _Did I forget to do something before I left for shore leave? Or to visit someone in the city? _A horrible suggestion flickered into his imagination, leaving him to hope the _Enterprise _wasn't again in mortal danger with him land-bound thousands of miles away, unable to help. But Ensign Weisz's presence through his communicator and the academy's conformation of the Fleet's flagship's arrival quelled that particular worry.

_So what's wrong with me? What did I miss?_

The glimmering bay disappeared, replaced with a mere second of glimmering orbs as the transport process began. A slight sensation of displacement was the only side effect of being molecularly disassembled and reassembled, the balmy outdoor breeze of California suddenly replaced by metallic air repetitively circulated through ventilators.

Johann Weisz was not in the room, as expected. Instead, the delicately featured and familiar face of Pavel Chekov lifted from where the young navigator stood in concentration over the transporter controls. Ice-blue eyes shined when they lit upon the man just materialized onto the ship. "Hikaru!"

Sulu quickly dropped his bag in order to catch his best friend flying across the room and into his arms. "You're back!" Chekov pulled back in the embrace just enough to glare up in accusation, a beaming smile threatening to leave his words bereft of severity. "You were gone a wery, wery long time. Space is not zee same without you."

_Oh. He was what was missing. _"Good to see you too, Pav."

**The End (of Sulu's Befuddlement)**


End file.
